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The Final Bet

When young and handsome Othman married Sofia—sophisticated, French, rich, and forty years his senior—he found his ticket out of a life of desperate poverty in the slums of Casablanca. But when Sofia is brutally murdered, the police quickly zero in on Othman as the prime suspect. With his mistress, the love of his life, waiting in the wings he certainly has motive. But is he guilty? Or has he been framed by an overzealous, corrupt police force?

Born in Mekne`s, Morocco in 1958, Abdelilah Hamdouchi is one of the first writers of police fiction in Arabic and a prolific, award-winning screenwriter of police thrillers, including Whitefly (AUC Press, 2016). He lives in Rabat, Morocco. Translator Jonathan Smolin is the author of Moroccan Noir: Police, Crime, and Politics in Popular Culture (2013), and translator of Abdelilah Hamdouchi's Whitefly (AUC Press, 2016). He lives in Hanover, NH.